the aches and fevers
mid-week stay-with-me stresses
medicine won’t work

she came in a dream
all better (never better)
if only the truth

i hate trapped secrets
the solid weight of her truth
worth liquefying

they have stopped asking
bless the sick season for that
(she’ll be sick for life)

losing a baby,
making candy memories,
alcoholism:

all life sentences
that never bring forth the dream
that they’d imagined